Will Doctor Strange Be Marvel's First Horror Movie?

Over the last few years, Marvel has started differentiating their solo films by making them in different genres, in addition to comic book movies. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a spy thriller, Ant-Man was a heist film, etc. But there are a few genres that Marvel has yet to touch upon, including a straight-up horror movie. Could Doctor Strange, directed by Sinister's Scott Derrickson, be the first?

"What's great about Marvel is they don't just make superhero movies," Scott Adkins, who stars in an as-yet-undisclosed role in the upcoming film, told The Huffington Post. "They make a different genre out of a different superhero film. Whether it's a thriller, a straight-up action movie or political thriller, they're likely to choose a different genre for different heroes, and we're gonna see some psychedelic stuff in this one. Very exciting."

We had heard the "psychedelic" description before, and everything we'd heard about Doctor Strange made us think that the other genre would be something along the lines of "Fantasia-meets-acid-trip." But according to Adkins, this might be Marvel's very first horror film:

"This is going to show that other dimension side. I'm sure [director] Scott Derrickson's going to bring some of his horror element into it as well," Adkins said. "It's gonna be a different version of a Marvel comic."

A "horror element" could mean a lot of things, but if they are aiming for an actual horror movie, it would be very exciting. Not only would it be completely different from anything Marvel has done in the past, but it would continue the trend of making slightly darker movies with more adult themes. Plus Derrickson, who has directed films such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose in addition to the Sinister series, is primarily known for horror, so he would be the perfect candidate to helm Marvel's first horror project. It is, of course, unlikely that it will be so horrific that it will alienate young audiences, since they're essential for Marvel's huge box office expectations, but we can probably expect Doctor Strange to be scarier than any Marvel movie so far.